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Right now at 9:06 pm it is 9 but with the wind chill its -4. This morning when I left for work at 5:40 it was -1 without the windchill.

What state do you live in? Because it's 10 PM here in central Illinois and we have the exact same weather: 9º F, but feels like -4º F.

It's supposed to "warm up" into the 30s here by Friday. I don't really mind the cold so much, but the short days really make winter here depressing. I hate leaving work at 5 PM and the sun is already down.

So late Saturday night a ton of rain came flying down in the Western New York region, among others. Weird for mid to late December to have rain period, but we did. On top of a foot of snow that melted earlier in the week, it was a soggy period. Not entirely new to the region but something we have had in years past.

My basement was fine. In fact I threw a Christmas party for my friends and we were playing ping pong and other types of pong along with other games, mainly in the basement. FYI, I keep 90% of my Star Wars collection in the basement. So we went to bed that night (a few guests decided to sleep over because the rain had turned to ice overnight and it was getting slippery) and my wife and I gave up the bed to sleep on the couch. Left the hall light so my guests could find the bathroom, and I noticed after I went to bed and woke up briefly that it was pitch dark. I thought to myself "oh, the power went off" and didn't think anything of it and went back to bed.

I then woke up at 6:00 a.m. and saw the light off again but this time I said, "Ohhhh, the power went off" and immediately went down to the basement. My cat was down there (my brother sleeping over put him in the basement after she pawed his face all night, standard procedure) but on the steps. So I checked and indeed at that point I had about 6 inches of water in the basement. Frantically I tried to rescue some of the boxes. I called my neighbor to get a generator, and he was ready to drive with me but the power went back on. My sump kicked on and the water started to drain.

However, 2 things. 1) My back up completely failed. I suspected it would because over the summer it did not entirely do its job when my main sump's breaker was tripped 2) The breaker for the main tripped about an hour after the power went back on adding about 6 more inches.

I can luckily say that save for my washer which isn't spinning, agitating, my treadmill, dryer, humidifier, furnace and hot water tank were fine. But I cannot begin to tell you about my collection. I have 80% of my collection in package, most of it mint. Most of it was water logged despite lots of totes and damaged. My vehicle collection took the biggest hit since they were the heaviest and took up the bottom of the basement. My adjuster comes today to perhaps give me the good news. I am crossing my fingers.

"The dark side clouds everything. Impossible to see, the future is. But this I am sure of - do their duty the Jedi will." --Yoda from Attack of the Clones.